White House – Graduate School of Political Management Blog

The ECHO: Centered on Capitol Hill

johnbrandtSeptember 15, 2017September 3, 2019

The ECHO is the newest component of our PEORIA Project social media monitoring and analysis research. With The ECHO, we're tracking the weekly ebb and flow of trending topics and individuals in politics.

This week our lead PEORIA Project researcher Prof. Michael Cohen found that Twitter was focused on the United States Capitol writing

The center of political discussion on Twitter moved to Capitol Hill this week as members passed a deal struck by the president and Democratic congressional leaders to extend the debt limit for three months and fund hurricane relief efforts for Hurricane Harvey (492,148 tweets) and ahead of Hurricane Irma (4,641,783 tweets). In the wake of the hurricanes, tweets about climate change were up 75 percent (721,677 tweets).

The shift in activity down Pennsylvania Avenue is reflected in the volume of tweets: President Donald Trump was down 47 percent while the tweets about the U.S. Senate (163 percent) and the House (229 percent) were both up by triple-digit percentages.

Check out the other insights at U.S News & World Report.

The History Of Nepotism In The White House

johnbrandtSeptember 5, 2017September 5, 2017

While President Donald Trump's inner circle of family members in key positions has many White House watchers nervous, GSPM Prof Matt Dallek notes that nepotism is nothing new at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. He joined WBUR's Freak Out And Carry On hosts Ron Suskind and Heather Cox Richardson to discuss several key instances of presidential familial advisors.

Listen to the entire interview here.

Richard Burr and Mark Warner Enter the History Books

johnbrandtMay 10, 2017May 10, 2017

By Michael Cornfield, GSPM Associate Professor and Research Director

This morning Senate Majority Leader McConnell said that “Today we’ll no doubt hear calls for a new investigation, which could only serve to impede the current work.” By current work McConnell meant that being conducted by the Senate Intelligence Committee.

That puts the now radioactively hot potato in the lap of the Committee’s chair, North Carolina Senator Richard Burr, a distant descendant of “Hamilton” star Aaron Burr. (The House counterpart committee has no credibility left after the antics of Devin Nunes.) Senator Burr, who has said this is his last term in Congress, said last night he was “troubled by the timing and reasoning” of FBI Director Comey’s firing last night. Burr has thus far collaborated with the ranking Democrat on the Committee, Mark Warner of Virginia, who has said the investigation into Russian involvement with the Trump campaign and the 2016 election “may very well be the most important thing I do in my public life.”

All this heartens me, as do Warner’s law degree and tech cred.

I presume and hope that neither Senator retains any ambition for higher office, as Warner has in the past. I presume and hope neither has any financial ties to the Trump Organization or the Russian state.

Their success also hinges on their capacity to summon and manage experts in financial and online data analytics and Russian studies, to withstand the pressures of authoritarian personalities and media exposure, to command respect from both political parties and FBI agents, and to follow the truth and the law in the spirit of patriotism.

Right now, Burr and Warner are the linchpin in the American republic.